


(some type of) closure

by scorpionGrass



Series: you can’t put a price on peace (of mind) [3]
Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: Angst and Humor, Ear Piercings, Gen, Post-Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-11-26
Packaged: 2020-12-07 10:34:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20974469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scorpionGrass/pseuds/scorpionGrass
Summary: "Wait you don’t remember?” Reno says, quite befuddled. “You asked me to stay late. Said you had something to ask me.”Tseng pointedly doesn’t admit that the request had flown from his mind minutes after he made it. It’s only now, racking through his memory, that he remembers why he made the request at all. And it’s a juvenile idea, utterly pointless, and won’t resolve anything.





	1. The Plan

The moon is a bright white disc in the sky that shines through mako-polluted clouds, the office silent save for the shuffling of papers. Tseng sits at a desk that doesn’t belong to him, lit between the slats of the blinds covering the window.

It doesn’t feel right, even months and months later, throwing out Veld’s nameplate. It doesn’t feel right replacing it with his own. So he doesn’t.

He tears his attention away from the piles of paperwork, the reports and investigations, lawsuits and legal documents, everything that’s currently giving him a migraine, and glances down at one of his drawers. The one filled with Aerith’s commoner cursive on sheafs of paper she borrowed from him.

88 wishes.

Tseng couldn’t do this. He could barely replace Veld. He couldn’t even save Zack (a promise he regrets making every single day). With President Shinra breathing down his neck now, it’s impossible to do anything except what’s ordered, perfectly executed with no room for discussion.

He pulls open the drawer, the manila folder that he kept all the letters pressed between along with the M.I.A. file Shin-Ra had issued to all search parties.

The photo on the file was taken shortly after the death of Zack’s mentor, Angeal Hewley. It was right around the time Zack started becoming disillusioned with Shin-Ra, when becoming a hero started meaning something different. His hair is pushed back in the photo, save for a single strand that still falls into his face. A scar decorates his cheek, and he has a single piercing through the lobe of his left ear.

_ I couldn’t save you _ .

Tseng carefully replaces the file back into the folder, along with Aerith’s letters, and shuts the drawer. There’s no use living in the past, but it presses in on him, choking him like smoke. He needs to focus.

He needs to go home and sleep.

“Hey boss-man,” Reno says, shoving the double doors open and sauntering in. “S’late, you’re not a robot you know.”

“You don’t have to stay, Reno,” Tseng replies, stifling a yawn and trying to be as casually aloof and professional as possible about his lack of sleep. “Being second doesn’t mean following me around like a puppy.”

_ Zack, the puppy _ .

He needs to get out of his head.

“Wait you don’t remember?” Reno says, quite befuddled. “You asked me to stay late. Said you had something to ask me.”

Tseng pointedly doesn’t admit that the request had flown from his mind minutes after he made it. It’s only now, racking through his memory, that he remembers why he made the request at all. And it’s a juvenile idea, utterly pointless, and won’t resolve anything. Regret is still regret, even if Turks were expected to rid themselves of anything that so much as resembled it.

(But with the Turks reduced to three, more responsibilities on his shoulders than ever, and the diminishing number of renowned First Class SOLDIERs on hand, it’s hard.)

“I did,” Tseng says, betraying nothing as usual. “I changed my mind. It’s no longer relevant.”

Reno frowns, sitting on the bit of empty space on his desk. “Well at least tell me what happened. I waited for hours, chief.”

“Not when I have all this to get through,” Tseng says, gesturing vaguely at the stacks of papers on his desk. He pinches the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes and attempting a deep breath. “Go home, Reno.”

“Nah.”

Tseng opens his eyes and stares unimpressed at his second-in-command. “That’s a direct order.”

Reno shrugs. “You sounded really serious earlier. Shit like that doesn’t get resolved in a couple hours cooped up in a dusty office.”

“Maybe in your world, but the organization of administrative work can do wonders to resolve issues of the Shin-Ra Corporation variety.”

Reno sighs, long and drawn out, and cracks his neck. “Sure didn’t seem like a Shin-Ra problem,” he mutters. “You can’t fool me. You might be a Turk, but I’ve been here since the start. We can spot each other’s tells a mile away. Farther, if you factor mako into it and wanna get real specific.”

“We have no need to--”

“Ya still got that file dontcha.” Reno’s off his desk and rifling his desk drawer in the second Tseng takes to blink. A grin spreads across Reno’s face. “Knew it.”

Tseng frowns, wondering how the hell Reno knew about that. “I still need to file that,” he lies.

“It’s been weeks, boss.”

“And we’ve had other things to deal with.”

“Filing shit like this takes a couple seconds,” Reno says, flipping through the file so casually, thumb letting the pages fly by, “so there’s a reason you’re holding onto it.”

He smoothly withdraws the photo of Zack from the paperclip holding it all together, fingers holding it by the edges so his prints don’t press on the glossy finish. The back of the photo has the date in red pen and it feels so long ago now. But it’s only been a few months since everything. Since the rest of the Turks were forced out into hiding or killed in action. Since Zack died on that cliff only miles outside Midgar.

“We’ve lost a lot of people,” Reno says into the heavy silence. “I don’t blame you for wanting to hold onto them. So what was your plan?”

Green eyes slide over to Tseng’s in the darkness of the office, glowing in the moonlight. “It was stupid,” Tseng says finally.

Reno shrugs. “Probably better than doing nothing.”

He’s not wrong, and nothing has gotten him nowhere so far. Tseng clasps one hand over the other on his desk and takes a deep breath, knowing he might just regret this.

“I was thinking about getting my ear pierced.”

Reno’s lips twist into a smirk. “That’s new,” he says, amused. “Why do you think I could help, Rude’s the one who’s got a whole ear done up y’know.”

“I figured you’d know a guy. You always know a guy.”

The grin Reno shoots him is positively feral. Tseng decides that yes, he does very much regret this.


	2. The Execution

Reno always knows a guy.

There’s the corner store in the slums who never asks twice about providing off-grid burner phones, the loco dealer in Wall Market who was crucial to a drug bust, the rich paparazzi girl in Sector 8 who always had photographic evidence… The list goes on.

Whenever the Turks are in need of someone specific, Reno has them covered head-to-toe with a contact list that Tseng suspects rivals the height of the Shin-Ra tower.

Tseng did not suspect the guy this time would actually be Rude.

“You’re a Turk,” Reno says with a laugh, dropping down into the comfy chair across Tseng when he hangs up on his PHS, “how did you  _ not _ know?”

Tseng blames his exhaustion, the mounting pile of stresses on his desk, but even he’s a little dumbfounded. “Rude was a bouncer who defused a bomb then rebuilt it better. That’s his file.”

Reno smirks. “Then you never read the rest?”

“The past isn’t important when you’re a Turk. What you bring to the team, that’s what I need to know.”

“Well then I guess you need to know that he used to work at a tattoo shop. Did a lot of piercings, did a lot of tattoos, comes with a lot of experience,” Reno says with a grin. “You’re in safe hands, boss.”

“Sure,” Tseng agrees reluctantly.

At least it wasn’t a crackhead from Wall Market. Sometimes, Reno’s contacts are complete busts and promptly scratched off the list. Pretenses completely screwed at this point, Tseng rubs at his eyes. “I can’t believe you just called him over like it’s not the middle of the night. Was he sleeping?”

“Eh, maybe?”

Tseng sighs. He’s not even sure what he’s signed up for at this point, but he expects blood so at least that sounds like business as usual.

The context, not so much.

It’s not long before Tseng’s door opens to the silhouette of their silent comrade.

“Rude! Buddy! Glad you could make it,” Reno says with a grin. “You brought the stuff?”

Rude steps into the office, metal briefcase at his side plastered with decals that Tseng recognizes as the various marks of the gangs in the slums. Not that any topsider would know what they are, besides some random symbols or logos. He sets the briefcase on Tseng’s desk and flips up the metal hinges.

“Sure did,” he intones. His sunglasses are on as usual, but Tseng can tell when he’s been pinned with a look of confusion. It’s a look he’s used to getting from both of them. “What do we need all this for?”

“Tseng here wants to get his ear pierced,” Reno drawls.

“I can’t believe you didn’t provide him with context,” Tseng says, pinching the bridge of his nose.

Reno just shrugs. “Thought it’d be more fun if we kept it top secret.”

“Yes, between you, me, Rude, and whoever sees me tomorrow,” Tseng says, unimpressed. “Real secretkeeper you are.”

“I’m only doing it if you’re sure,” Rude says as Reno shrugs. “You really want your ear pierced?”

Suddenly, Tseng wonders why they’re making such a big deal of it. Why he’d made a big deal of it earlier. “I’m sure,” he says, if only because he figures it’s too late now, the die was cast the moment he had the idea and now only the execution was left (and knowing Reno, there’ll be a rumour that he chickened out come morning if he doesn’t).

Rude nods in response and lifts the lid up. In the briefcase is a set of starter earrings in an acrylic case, a piercing gun, a bag of cotton balls, and a small case of sterilized needles. “Well, you have choices. Gun or needle?”

“Gun?”

“Yes, a piercing gun. Though some people don’t like them, or just prefer needles. It depends.”

Tseng never thought he’d be shot with anything but bullets. Somehow, he prefers to keep that way.

“Needle, then,” he decides.

“Pick a style,” Rude moves on quickly, pushing the acrylic case of starters across the desk.

There are silver and gold ones, which Tseng can only assume are the classic styles. There are a couple shapes in the mix, stars and hearts and crosses, but most are round spheres or flat circles. He knows Zack wore a silver sphere, but somehow getting something so similar doesn’t seem right.

And silver suited Zack, who always shone so brightly, who may have had blood on his hands but did everything he could to make sure none of it was in vain.

Reno excitedly points out some of the more colourful ones, or the ones clearly meant for young kids, laughing and trying to get a chuckle out of Rude, but Tseng ignores them in favour of a flat black circle with the thinnest band of silver circling the border.

A silver lining.

“This one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there u go, how tseng got his cute little earring in the ffvii:remake trailer <3 hope y'all enjoyed!

**Author's Note:**

> after obsessively watching the remake trailer i came to the conclusive idea that since tseng has never had a piercing in his design ever before in the entire compilation, there must be some significance in it being an addition here.
> 
> and then i immediately decided in a tweet that it was in homage to zack. and made myself sad.
> 
> so here's a fic where i reconcile that.


End file.
